Home sweet home
by riceflojo
Summary: Ralph comes home after a late night. Added Don's perspective on the evening in chapter 2. This is my first fic, so please be nice. Thanks.
1. Default Chapter

_**Disclaimer: **I do not own them, even a little bit, none of them._

_Just a warning, it contains mild cursing._

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I exhaled a breath I'd been holding since 6th Street and it whistled sharply as it passed through my teeth. The air wasn't quite as thick here, so I could breathe a little more easily in this part of the sewer. Lucky that since home was getting close by, and it would have been much more unpleasant to live in some other parts of this dank maze.

The condensation on the beams supporting the street above me dripped menacingly, quietly threatening diseases I could only hope that either I couldn't catch or was already immune. Thankfully turtle DNA has served us by being a little more resilient than the average man's. The sludge sucking at my ankles rippled slightly as the drips found their home, and I swung up onto a higher brick ledge as the corridor widened slightly. The dim corridor opened to shadowy round entries allowing access to indistinct passageways, which I suppose would have looked ominous if they hadn't been so familiar to me. I navigated the next bend on the narrow brick ledge, careful not to slip back into the muck, and began to be able to hear muffled sounds over the dripping of the sewer and the squeaks of the rats.

_the traffic on the… bridge was backed up for hours… power outages in… _

The routine news program seemed so out of place down here, though I couldn't quite yet make out the context of the report. The echoes in this part of the sewer were another reason we chose it. If you didn't know where you were going already, it would have been difficult to pinpoint the origin of the sounds of life,

_NYU student missing…gallery exhibit opened today… _

and that would give us time to get out of the lair if we ever needed it. You couldn't tell from looking, but Donnie had security measures stowed all over these passages, and probably already knew I was on my way in… that is if he was still awake…

_now we go to a special report…O'Neal reporting from…_

Shit, I was later than usual. I didn't usually miss the special reports, and I'd meant to get back for the replay of the late news, which was already almost over. I'd gotten in a tussle with a mugger… heh… came up behind me in the park and thought he'd take my cash… like I'd have any cash. He'd really only gotten a couple of good shots in, but it'd slowed me up more than I realized. I rubbed my shoulder ruefully, that'd leave a bruise and Leo'd get mad again. '_You're always risking exposure…_' and all that jazz. I exhaled another breath as I saw an arch in front of me with the eerie green light from the television shifting in patterns on the brick of the sewer wall and wondered if anyone would be waiting up this late. They'd probably gone to bed after the first run of the news. The faint odor of basil and cheese wafted towards me mingled with the light stench of rotten wood and burned rubber and other ever-present variety of smells. I hoped there was some pizza left, and it wasn't just coming from the box.

_well, the Governor's office has my report on this situation but…_

I entered the lair quietly so not to wake everyone, though looking at the time, Leo and Splinter'd be up for breakfast and stretching soon. I'd better get in bed before then, or I'd get an earful. Merciful Zeus… Mikey left some pizza out for me. I grabbed a slice of Margarita and Pineapple, not that I'd ever understand why Mikey chose such concoctions, and hopped the back of couch to watch the end of April's report – something about health problems in low income housing – looked like she was going to get in trouble again for her 'negative portrayal of government aid.' Heh… probably be down here tomorrow to gripe, '_I'm only trying to give a voice to those who don't have one…_' I could see a faint blue glow coming from Donnie's room, fell asleep at the computer again. Too late to get him up, he'd get more sleep if I left him at the desk.

I polished off the pizza and headed to clean up the cut on my left hand before crashing…

_Jeeze Raph… could it be any later? Where have you b… and what is that bruise on your arm?_

Damn…… Leo was up…_Hey, yeah, I was just going to bed…_trying to sound sincere and nonchalant.

He raised a blue-felt-covered brow slightly… _Right, and now you're going let me see that cut before you do…_ He crossed his arm in a move of finality to punctuate his statement.

I could argue, but then I'd just wake up the others… I was tired… _Right… yeah, okay Leo…whatever…_


	2. Don

_**Disclaimer: **I still do not own them, even a little bit, none of them._

_Thanks for the reviews! I decided to tack in Don's perspective on the evening. I'll try and write a story with more of a plot soon, and more Raph stuff. :-)  
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_Speech continues to be in italics, but I added quotation marks for clarification.  
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Ch. 2 – Donnie

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The perpetual blue light emanating over my desk haloed my fingers as I ran another sequence of numbers, and I wondered vaguely if carpel-tunnel could affect ninjitsu, or turtles for that matter, hmm, probably. Maybe it was about time to take a break, if I was not more careful, hand cramps could get inconvenient. I had been working on this problem set for nearly 16 hours already… Well, after I finished this problem, after all, I was on a roll. 

Another hour must have passed when an actual sensory experience finally broke my concentration from my work and returned me to the physical world. The odor was like a tether pulling me back down from space, and reminding me that not only was I corporeal, I was also starving. I dove out of my room in search of the source of the cheesy smell – and what was that – garlic maybe… I was not sure, but it smelled good – and leaped the couch as I headed for it.

"_Donnie! Dude… where ya been all day?" _ Mikey tossed a box at me with a grin.

Margarita pizza! That's what that captivating olfactory experience was! "_Working_…" I managed to get out as I crammed a whole piece into my mouth. _"Mmmffph…"_ I tried to articulate my gratitude through a mouthful of pizza.

"_Ha ha… No prob man!" _Mikey said laughing heartily and getting the idea despite my lack of lucid speech, and then called out to Leo that food had arrived. I nodded vaguely to Leo as he entered the room, and was just beginning to tear my attention from the enthralling food toward my brothers when he turned to me as he grabbed a couple of slices from the half open box on the table, sporting a red imprint of Tony's grinning face. "_So Don, what is this you've been working on all day?"_

"_I'm assisting in a study on the background microwave radiation levels in space for the course I'm taking on Practical Application of Theoretical Cosmology …" _I glanced up as I was about to expound on the details of the study and stopped dead as I was met with silence and twin looks of total befuddlement. "_Uh, you know, the course I'm taking…" _I launched into my explanation and was only a little way through the second chapter of the research paper when we heard "_Dun dun DE **dun…"**_as the television insistently interrupted with the familiar theme denoting the beginning of the news, and we all prepared to transfer to the couch.

"_Sweet!"_ Mikey exclaimed and grabbed his stuffed bear, settling in for the program, while Leo looked around absently, saying something under his breath that sounded like _"you'd think he'd be home for the news once in a while…"_ Before I could respond, the anchorperson had already started listing the news stories from behind the new bad hair-cut of the week and the unchanging faux mahogany desk. No sooner had I remembered what I was going to say, than I was already distracted by teasers for April's report, and thought vanished.

I let myself remain distracted from my work for the program. I always told myself that I would get more work done after dinner, but without fail I would end up in a long discussion with my brothers about politics or science, or the anchorman's hair. I guess it was all right, after all Splinter always says, family time is important, too.

There was a particularly interesting story about a missing NYU student tonight that we would have to check into tomorrow, maybe we could help. After the news we all headed for bed. It was getting late, and I just had one more problem that I wanted to work through. As I sat back at my desk, I heard Mikey come up behind me.

"_You goin' to bed Donnie? You can finish that tomorrow you know." _He declared looking mildly concerned that I would allow my easily distracted nature to place work before my health again.

"_Soon, I just have one more problem that I want to get done." _I replied as I resumed typing figures into the advanced calculator program, which I had programmed into my computer ages ago. _"I want to get this turned in early so that I can get to work on fixing April's TV. She said it still has that snowy line on the higher channels."_

"_Mmm… hmm…I'm sure she'll understand if you take one more day. Besides didn't you say this wasn't due until next month? That gives you…" _ he glanced at the calendar blinking in turn with the clock in the corner of the computer screen. _"27 days… I think you'll make your dead-line. Com' on Don…get some sleep! You work too hard!" _He said with a grin and a pat on my shoulder.

"_I will, after this problem." _I insisted with a smile, and he laughed, finally conceding, and headed for the door.

The problem turned out to have subsets of problems based on it, and as I continued to work, and time passed, the unvarying blue glow of the iridescent computer screen began to play tricks on my increasingly drooping eyes, and weave patterns of intricate battle scenes in shadows across the room. As I guided sigma and theta in their quest against 234.7x on my screen, tiny ninjas followed the make-shift baseboard we had put up along the bottom of our rooms to keep out spiders, that summer back when Mikey was little and still having nightmares.

"_Jeeze Raph… could it…" _Leo's voice drifting into my room from outside, breaking through the fog in my head, was my first indication that I had fallen asleep at my desk. The insistent and increasing pain focusing in the crick in my neck was the second. Little armies of n's crossed my screen where I had fallen asleep on the keyboard, and I idly wondered if I had the impression of the key imprinted on my forehead. Better move to the bed and get a few more hours of sleep while I could. I would need to get up pretty early – and relatively soon really – in the morning if I planned to get over to April's to work on that TV. She always wanted me to come to help in the mornings before she went of to work – said she was a morning person, and friends started the day off right – and I just couldn't turn her down, even though I was pretty sure the problem was in the TV signal not in the cables. Ah well, any excuse to talk to her was a good excuse I guess. I crawled into my unkempt bed and tried to push that last thought from my head as drifted back off.


End file.
